


brief even as bright

by picturecat



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Enemies to Lovers, Flowers, M/M, Plants, Presumed Dead, it's an AU where they're all plants in a garden, the language of flowers is a fistfight actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picturecat/pseuds/picturecat
Summary: Tony is the best and brightest red rose bush in the garden. He does not need some upstart sprout creeping on him.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 121





	brief even as bright

**Author's Note:**

> based on this prompt from b r o k e n~s o u l~f l e u r in the Put On The Suit Discord:  
> "Smol steeb is a plant. His best friend (and maybe even more than a friend) is plant Tony. One day, their owner switches up the fertilizer and smol steeb becomes big steeb. Now, he towers above Tony who is salty about it."
> 
> I took some liberties.

Tony wasn’t pleased when the human put a new plant so close to him. 

It was barely a foot away; much, _much_ too close. Whatever it was wasn’t bothering him right now, but eventually it would get bigger and its roots would get deeper and then they’d be _competing._

Not that Tony was afraid of a little competition. His roots were strong and deep. The human watered him just enough and the fertilizer was _good—_ plenty of nitrogen, alfalfa meal and epsom salts; and the compost was homemade and all-natural, naturally. And the result was Tony. He was the brightest and bushiest rose in the garden. Every flower he made was exquisite, deep red; every petal was velvety soft and perfectly curled.

There were other roses. Pepper, on his right, was a very fragrant coral orange rose— Tony had to admit she smelled nicer than him. On his left was Rhodey, a dusky blue rose with a subtler, perfumy fragrance, but his blooms were the biggest in the whole garden. There was also Happy, all the way up by the mailbox, with bright yellow flowers. Of course, Rhodey and Pepper were both a good, proper several feet away, and Happy was so far Tony couldn’t quite tell what variety he was meant to be, and anyway, there was a reason red was a classic. 

However. That didn’t mean he wanted some leggy little weed taking up his resources. 

“I’ll choke you with my roots,” Tony growled at the sprout. It was the pale green of new life, but it seemed unfazed by his threat. 

“I’m Steve,” it said. “And I can do this all season.”

Much to Tony’s chagrin, the sprout did exactly that: it shot up very quickly over the growing season, although it did so with an ugly, spindly vine. Tony often wished that the human would realize the thing was a weed and just pull it already. But horror of horrors— not only did the human not do that, the human deliberately leaned Steve against him and encouraged him to wrap his creepers all over Tony’s gorgeous stems!

Rhodey and Pepper laughed at Tony’s displeasure.

“We don’t have to compete, you know,” Steve said one day. “My leafstalks aren’t hurting you.”

It was true— the creepers didn’t hurt. Steve had a light touch, and the curl of his leafstalks around Tony’s stems was gentle, even tender, sweetly wrapped around the wicked curve of Tony’s thorns. 

Still. It was the principle of the thing, wasn’t it?

“I don’t need some sucker getting all tangled around me,” Tony snapped.

Steve got very droopy after that, and Tony thought guiltily that perhaps he hadn’t needed to be so harsh. 

Tony finally broke when Steve’s leaves went from droopy to wilty; quite alarmed now, Tony decided to apologize. 

“I’m sorry I called you a sucker. I didn’t mean it. You’re not hurting me or stealing nutrients, and I don’t mind you that much at all,” he said fervently. “Please get better.”

But there was nothing for it. Steve didn’t respond and he didn’t get better. His leaves continued to wilt, went brown and crunchy, and eventually, disintegrated. His leafstalks, once green and soft around Tony’s hard stems, turned brittle and brown. Steve was quite dead. 

“I shall never bloom again,” Tony announced.

Tony spent the winter curled inward, hibernating with his grief and refuting the condolences offered by Pepper and Rhodey. They tried to tell him that Steve’s death was nutritional, a soil deficiency, or even that perhaps Steve was simply an annual. But Tony knew the truth: Steve had died of a broken heart, and Tony was determined to follow him.

When spring came, Tony would simply not bloom. The human would try, adding fertilizers and checking for beetles, but Tony had meant what he said. When he thought now of his petals, he remembered the softness of Steve’s stalks and the curl of his creepers, and the red that he favored seemed dull and lifeless when he compared it to the bright green of Steve wrapped around him.

The human would pull him up when he refused to bloom. That was fine; maybe they would take a cutting from Tony first and the new rosebush would never know anything of heartbreak or death. 

The days got slowly warmer. Pepper began to bloom, eager and glowing orange around the edges. When Tony smelled her perfume he thought longingly of the spring before and curled his leaves tighter, determined to repress the new growth on his branches.

Rhodey put out blooms as well, surprisingly small and delicate, considering how big Tony knew they would be eventually. Up by the mailbox, Tony could see the tell-tale yellow blobs that meant Happy was putting his own show on. Everything was green around him except for Steve, limp and brown in the cradle of Tony’s branches.

As Tony expected, the human began to frown at Tony as the days got longer and he still refused to bud. The human came round with the usual spring fertilizers and gave Tony an extra thorough look all over, but there was neither bug nor bacteria stymying his growth, and the human eventually sat back with a shrug.

“Tony, come on,” Rhodey urged him. “I know you feel bad, but it wasn’t your fault. You have to bloom. That’s what you _do._ ”

Tony didn’t respond. 

“Oh, that gardener! I _wish_ they’d just pull Steve up already; can’t they see the reminder is hurting Tony?” Pepper cried out. 

Tony _hated_ Pepper.

The spring rains came, what felt like every other day now, soaking everyone’s roots with water. The time for stagnancy was over. 

It seemed Steve thought so too. Steve’s stalks, once brown, turned deeper green, and bright new leaves started to furl out of the stalks Tony had thought were dead. To Tony’s delight, there was even new growth— both a new, pale green creeper reaching for Tony’s nearest stem, and a new sprout curling out of the dirt.

“Happy spring, Tony,” Steve said. 

And Tony, delighted, burst into bloom. 

* * *

The human came outside and took pictures of Tony, its weird fleshy face gleaming with pleasure. Rhodey and Pepper both agreed it was the most spectacular bloom they’d ever seen from Tony.

“I’m so glad you’re feeling better, Tony,” Pepper said. “And Steve, we’re so happy that you’re back. I hope you’ll be growing with us for a very long time.”

Tony _loved_ Pepper. 

Steve grew just as quickly as he had last season. But it was better: this time he wasn’t gripping tentatively, he was twining all throughout Tony. Each time Tony put out a new bloom, Steve wrapped a new curler around the stem, caressing Tony as he flowered. And even though Tony knew objectively that Pepper’s blooms were more fragrant and Rhodey’s blooms were bigger, Steve insisted that Tony’s were the best and prettiest he’d ever seen. 

When Steve was securely inextricable from Tony’s branches, he put out a few pale green buds of his own: pointed, tear-shaped things that were tightly closed. Tony couldn’t have been more excited if they were his own, and when Steve’s buds started to open next to his, Tony nearly burst with pride and pleasure. 

Steve’s blooms were as spectacular as Tony’s. They were big, star-shaped blue-mauve flowers with fuzzy yellowish centers, and they looked fantastic intertwined with Tony’s deep red ones. 

“You’re a clematis,” Tony said. “You’re the best clematis I’ve ever seen.”

Steve shyly wrapped a creeper around one of Tony’s newest blooms, green curling around red. “I wouldn’t look half as pretty if I weren’t next to you. And that’s the truth.”

“Let’s always bloom together,” Tony said, and Steve agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is nonsense. I hope you liked it  
> If you want to guess/headcanon about the varieties of flowers each of the cast are, please do!! Not that I necessarily expect anyone to be as weirdly into this as I am, but it would make me happy. :)


End file.
